


First Steps

by Sapphicartsandwriting



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: F/F, Family, Femslash, Fluff, X-Men: The End, x-men femslash week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 18:48:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14721620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphicartsandwriting/pseuds/Sapphicartsandwriting
Summary: Kitty worries about her future as a mother; Rachel encourages her; Meredith learns to walk.For X-Men Femslash Week 2018, Day Two.





	First Steps

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, this is a pretty rough draft. The scenes are good, but the transitions between them are somewhat lacking. I didn’t have the time or energy to do better because if school, sadly :(. Nevertheless, this is a good concept and I hope to revise it sometime over the summer.

“Kitty! You’re home!” Rachel exclaimed, a baby on her hip and her phone in the other.

Kitty smiled, lethargic but genuine. “I’m sorry, I know it’s late, but I was stuck in meeting after meeting today…” She paused, stopping herself from rambling the list of the day’s excuses and just sighed. She phased out of her blazer and the heels that threatened to kill her feet and collapsed on the couch.

“You’ll never guess what happened today!”

“What?” Kitty asked, still too tired to be enthusiastic.

“Meredith _crawled_!” She held out her phone for Kitty to see the video she took.

Sure enough, there was baby Meredith, scooting across the carpet on her hands and knees. She grinned her wide, slobbery grin at the camera.

“ _You’re doing such a good job! That’s right!_ ” the recording of Rachel said.

“Awww… Kitty said, unwilling to let the day’s burdens ruin the moment. She looked up to see her wife and child both smiling at her.

“ _Just wait ‘till Mommy sees this!_ ”

Kitty felt a pang of sadness in her chest, though she couldn't put her finger on why.

The video ended, and Kitty held out her hands to take Meredith. “So, when did this happen?”

“Well, I had just gotten home from picking her up from daycare after work and…”

Rachel continued talking, but Kitty was unable to listen. Instead, she found herself looking wistfully at the the baby in her arms, whose face had become solemn.

* * *

Kitty held up her hand to stifle a sigh; Dr. Greene was rambling again. He was standing at the head of the table, looking at the chart displayed behind him and blatantly abusing the laser pointer. She could almost feel herself dozing off, deeply regretting that all-nighter she pulled.

Suddenly, she felt a buzzing against her hip. Thank goodness, she needed a distraction more than anything right now, except coffee. She pulled out her phone and her eyes lit up when she saw Rachel’s name on her screen.

Hiding the phone under the table as if she was a high school student, she opened the text and found a picture of Meredith standing by herself in the living room, grinning and obviously proud of herself. It was captioned, “Look what she did today!”

Kitty’s heart fell. She held the phone in her hands for a moment to look at her daughter’s sweet face before putting her phone away. She was unable to pay attention the rest of the meeting.

* * *

The darkness masked Kitty’s face, but Rachel knew that something was wrong from the surface of Kitty’s mind. She wanted to let Kitty tell her on her own, so she left Kitty’s mind and said, “You have to tell me what’s wrong. I know something is.”

“Well, why don’t you just read my mind?” she snapped. She felt Rachel’s body stiffen against her back and roll away from her. Silence fell over the dark room for a moment, and Kitty’s heart almost broke with immediate guilt.

“That’s not fair, Kitty, and you know it.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Unable to hold it in any longer, she let out a shuddering sob and curled up into a ball on the bed.

“Shh… shh… it’s okay, its okay,” Rachel cooed as she wrapped her arms around her wife again, running her hands up and down Kitty’s arms soothingly. “Let it out.”

“I’m just… I’m so scared that I’m going to miss Meredith’s childhood. Her life. That I’m going to be too busy to watch her grow up. And it’s already started! I didn’t get to see her crawl for the first time or stand up by herself, and I know I’m not going to get to see her walk, I just know it!”

“Kitty, you’ve been there as much as you could…”

“But it’s not enough! It never will be!”

“Kitty, you’re doing so much for everyone. For our city, for our daughter, for me… It’s alright to grieve over these lost moments, but you don’t have to let them eat away at you. This doesn’t mean that you won’t give Meredith the best life she can live, and it certainly doesn’t mean that you’re going to be a bad mother. There are much worse parents. And hey, at least she won’t have daddy issues.”

Kitty smiled. “My wife, the comedian.”

“I try.”

“I…” Kitty sniffled. “Thanks, Ray.”

“Hey… I love you. And I don’t like seeing you so upset.”

“I love you too.”

Rachel kissed the top of Kitty’s head and silence fell again, but it was different. Warmer, somehow. Kitty nodded off peacefully in the protective comfort of Rachel’s arms.

* * *

“You’re home early today, huh?”

Kitty shrugged. “I guess I finished everything I needed to do yesterday.”

“It’s about damn time. Not you, I mean.” Rachel chuckled.

“Oh, it’s alright.”

Rachel led Kitty into the house. “We can go out tonight, if you’d like. We can call a sitter.”

“Do you want to get takeout instead? We could save Megan the trouble.”

Rachel nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good. Do you want pizza? Or Chinese?”

“Pizza sounds fine.”

They smiled at each other for a moment; it’d been a long time since they got to do anything like this.

As they ate, Rachel told Kitty about everything going on at work while Kitty watched her lovingly. She missed this. She missed it so much.

After dinner, Kitty brought the dirty dishes out and filled up the sink, beginning to wash.

When Kitty got about halfway through, Rachel called out excitedly from the other room. “Kitty! Kitty, come here. You’ve gotta see this.”

“Alright, alright.” Kitty let the cup fall back into the sudsy sink water and dried off her hands nonchalantly. She walked into the next room and her eyes widened, her hands flying to her face.

Meredith stood there, wobbling on one foot. After a moment of figuring out her balance, she set one foot down in front of the other and hobbled into Rachel’s waiting arms.

Kitty burst into tears. Rachel picked up their daughter and offered her to Kitty, who gratefully accepted. She planted a kiss on the toddler’s head and pulled her close, cradling her into the curve of her neck. Weeping, Kitty rocked Meredith back and forth and whispered to her, “I promise, Meredith. I promise I’ll be there for you. Always.”


End file.
